Weed'em and Reap on for this Friday.

Posted Tuesday, August 19, 2008, at 3:07 PM

Cindy will be awarded her fig tree and someone new will get the next one. Then it is back to the rooting bin for a few weeks before we have another. Someone asked I sold them and that reminded me that our daughter suggested that last year.

Some things have to stay sacred, so our fig trees will always be given away. Besides, Mike keeps giving his flowers away, so.... Soon it will be Barbara's fall seed extravaganza. We are all waiting and rubbing our dirt covered hands.

Our Chinese winter melon are starting to take over the garden and beyond. I know I should cut them back but.... Several of the vines have climbed the crepe myrtles and if I let them develop fruit the Crepe M will be bowed to the ground with the 40 pound fruit.

The Cypress vines have accomplished their task for the year. They climb up the deck timbers until they completely cover them. As the sun gets lower and starts coming in the windows they will shade us from the direct heat until frost. By then, we will want the sun back in here.

The artichokes are looking more and more like they will not make buds before fall and have to be overwintered. Has anyone been successful with these as an annual here in Tennessee? If we have a mild winter, they might make it but I am not about to build a house around them and add heat just to see them flower.

Maybe if I had built those movable cold frames I keep dreaming about, but those are still just that, a dream. Anyone read Elliot Coleman's Four Season Harvest? http://www.fourseasonfarm.com/main/books... His greenhouses have really gone upscale since his original ones. I haven't checked prices on his site but his book describes how to make them on my kind of budget.

While I was on his site I noticed another new book I NEED to get. Yeesh, I need to stop visiting. Nice fellow though. Did anyone get to meet him when he was in Nashville this Spring? I was scheduled to be there but alas.....

Maybe book reviews would be another good blog topic. I don't get a chance to read many books and reviews and comments might motivate others like me to pick one up.

-- Posted by stevemills on Sun, Aug 24, 2008, at 1:24 PM

Thanks Steve!

I wanna read Barbara Kingsolvers book too! I just finished Prodigal Summer. It took me until about 100 pages into it, to GET into it. There was a good idea in it for our new culture/religion that has been introduced to our great county.

-- Posted by mmp84 on Sun, Aug 24, 2008, at 11:48 AM

We had the hardcore gardeners at this meeting. Two fig trees given away and a bouquet of zinnia seeds for the coming season.

They have a curious front cover and I have not had time to find out the story behind it. Check it out and maybe you can tell us.

They appear to have a lot of unique and hard to find plants.

A mystery gourd was brought in and we used the internet to identify it as a ridged luffa gourd (loofa) AKA Running Okra and Chinese Okra. It is the same plant that develops the luffa sponge but picked early it can be eaten in salads, steamed or added to soups and stews.

Then we looked at cfrich's suggested reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Mineral book and discussed the Chinese Winter-melon that was brought in. It weighed about 25 pounds and was left with Ricky and Nancy who own the Hong Kong restaurant.

mmp84, others are having challenges with moles, so you are not alone. Moles are usually after grubs and worms. You may have an abundance of both in addition to nice soft soil.

Before you pull out the traps or poison you can try buying a product containing milky spore disease, or nematodes that can be soaked into the soil. Both will attack the grubs but not the worms.

-- Posted by stevemills on Sat, Aug 23, 2008, at 9:30 PM

I have not read it, but will certainly look it up..

Of course YOU could bring it up at the meeting. (You had to know that was coming) ;-)

-- Posted by stevemills on Fri, Aug 22, 2008, at 5:40 PM

This has nothing to do with this post, really, but I keep wanting to ask you - have you checked out Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Mineral book? I think it might be of interest to a lot of the people in the gardening club - it's about how Kingsolver and her family decide to 'know' exactly where their food is coming from for a year. I hate her style of writing, but if you can get past it, there's a lot of interesting things in the book.

-- Posted by cfrich on Fri, Aug 22, 2008, at 5:30 PM

I will try to remember to bring it up tonight.

See, you can even be a e-member of the group. We are easy.

-- Posted by stevemills on Fri, Aug 22, 2008, at 5:16 PM

Steve, I've never gotten to one of the weed'em and reap meetings. Too much going on Friday nites but anyway, have ya'll discussed/noticed how the dry weather has NOT affected the moles in the yard? They may also be voles....I don't know.

I was just thinking, as I was over on Chantal's blog about the cemeteries, that the moles and groundhog holes and runs are all over the place!

Its very frustrating, but at least since the grass has crisped, I don't have to push the mower over them and sprain yet another ankle. ha!

Steve Mills and his wife have one daughter. They previously owned two coffee/ice cream shops, currently operate an internet sales company and teach classes, but his primary job involves the paper industry worldwide. Hobbies and interests lie in gardening, photography, recorded music and of course, their pets.